


NCIS: A Christmas Carol

by water_4_willows



Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 17:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2859749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/water_4_willows/pseuds/water_4_willows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In honor of Christmas and one of the most beloved Christmas Stories of all time, I give you A Christmas Carol, NCIS style :)  </p>
<p>It's exactly what you think it will be!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In order to pay homage to both Dickens and the characters of NCIS some creative license has been taken here, but I just couldn't help myself. This was begging to be written and I hope you enjoy.

Once upon a time, Director Vance was dead.

It may surprise you to learn this (and you may be contemplating finding my address on the internet to hunt me down and give me your opinion on major character deaths and no warnings in the Summary), but there is a certain magic Christmastime brings and it is important that you know: once upon a time, Director Vance was dead.

He was the meanest Director NCIS ever had seen and he ruled over the men and women under his command with an iron clad fist that brokered no mercy. He was ruthless, efficient, and terrorists and President's alike had cowered at his feet. But as you well may remember, Director Vance was dead, and had left in his place a man who was quickly making a name for himself as more dire than his predecessor.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was a solitary man of few words, but those words he did offer were sharp and likely to slice you at the jugular if you weren't careful and none but his lonely assistant Anthony DiNozzo, seemed to be able to handle him without getting maimed by the daggers Jethro Gibbs threw in his ever heated gaze.

Our story begins on Christmas Eve, in the year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Fourteen, and Director Vance had been dead these seven years, to begin with.

In an effort to conserve power in an ever growing energy crisis, Director Gibbs had ordered the power to his office cut off and Anthony DiNozzo (Tony to those closest to him) was filling out paperwork behind a typewriter, bathed in the low glow of several candlesticks dotted around his desk. It was Christmastime, you may well remember, and the end of December, and a cold north wind rattled the window panes behind Tony's desk and set him to shivering. He'd taken to wearing his woolen coat to use against the chill and he pulled the collar up closer against throat and rubbed his hands together miserably. No power to the office meant no heat and his fingers were as icy as the frozen ink ribbon of the typewriter on the desk before him.

Anthony DiNozzo was a cheerful man by nature and the unfortunate circumstances in which he found himself were not the result of karma for a life lived irresponsibly, but rather a product of the hard times the world found itself in at the moment. Mankind was floundering, people were massacring each other, rioting in the streets, and a man kept a paying job when he could come by it. His boss, the legendary Leroy Jethro Gibbs, had amassed a small fortune over the years in his shady dealings and Tony was paid regularly, if not abysmally. But all of that, every single bit of it, could be forgotten on this particular day and, warming his icy hands over the candle, DiNozzo's face broke out into wide a smile. The little windup clock beside his typewriter showed ten to six and that meant in a little over ten minutes, he would be released from work and headed home to see his wife and kids and begin that most cherished event: the celebration of Christmas.

The Washington DC visible outside his windows was bustling with the merriment of Christmastime and Tony grew excited for his short walk home to the small apartment he shared with his wife Ziva, and their three children: Peter, Emily and, most important of all, his littlest, Timothy, who, more than all of them put together, loved nothing so much as Christmas. But thoughts of Tim (or Tiny Tim as they had nicknamed him for his slight stature from the bones of his body that just wouldn't grow the way they were supposed to and the disease that threatened to take him from the world and the family that adored him before he'd even had a chance to see much of it) always made him melancholy. This year had been especially hard and DiNozzo was going to do everything in his power to make what was likely the lad's last Christmas, one to remember. He would take him to church with him tonight and take him down a special Washington DC street which held the mansions of the doctors who couldn't help him anymore, and more Christmas lights than any one person had ever seen before. Tony would lift Tim's frail little body up onto his shoulder as the child watched the lights in wide eyed wonder. They would sing Christmas carols on their way home from church and stop at the open air Christmas market so DiNozzo could call in a few favors and implement his plan to make Tiny Tim's final Christmas one for the record books.

So wrapped up he was in his Christmas plans that Tony didn't hear the door to his outer office open as a visitor breezed in nearly startling him.

"Merry Christmas Tony!" Came a friendly voice and DiNozzo peered up into the gloom to find Palmer Gibbs smiling over at him from across the desk. The young man was dressed head to toe in his finest, most likely off to some festive holiday party, and even had an old fashioned top hat and gloves clutched in his hands.

"A Very Merry Christmas to you too, Palmer! How's the wife?"

"Brianna? She's fantastic! Waiting down in the car for me actually and thank you for asking." Palmer Gibbs was the nephew of Director Gibbs and he tilted his head towards his Uncle's closed office door with a grimace. "Is he in?"

Tony nodded and rose from his desk. If there was one thing Gibbs hated, it was being disturbed, but there were occasional exceptions to the rule and Tony figured the Director's only living relative was one of them.

"He is. Right this way, Palmer," he said merrily enough but a little embarrassed that he was showing the man the door bundled up in a winter coat against the chill in the office. He knocked loudly then swung the door open before Gibbs could have a chance to yell at him to go away.

If Tony's outer office was cold, it was an island paradise compared to the Director's inner sanctum. Gibbs had let the fire in his grate go out and was hunched over his desk, squinting at the papers in front of him in the low light of a candle. Tony busied himself with relighting the fire, knowing his boss would stay even after he left, and pretended not to eavesdrop on the conversation carrying on at the other end of the room.

"Merry Christmas Uncle Jethro!" Palmer beamed, taking one of the chairs before the Director's desk without invite. Tony looked over and watched his boss' face grow stormy.

"Humbug," the man grumbled a moment later and looked back down at his work. Palmer, unfazed by his uncle's one word of greeting, pushed on.

"Oh come on Uncle Jethro! It's Christmas."

"Palmer, if I had my way, every man who went about with Merry Christmas on his lips would get suited up and thrown out the back of a F-17 with nothing but his turkey for a parachute. You can take your Merry Christmas and shove it where the sun don't shine."

"Seriously? How can you say that!"

"You celebrate Christmas how you want to, nephew, and leave me the hell alone to do with it what I will."

"By throwing men out the back of planes? Sounds wonderful." Palmer replied sarcastically and Gibbs turned his mouth up into a sneer.

"It's cheaper than buying expensive gifts and throwing ridiculous parties." Gibbs countered and his nephew shook his head sadly.

"Christmas is a wonderful time Uncle Jethro and it's a travesty that you're missing out on it. It's a time full of compassion and love and merriment, when we can be nice to each other for a change and make the world a better place. So I say, God bless it!"

"Here here!" Tony found himself saying as Palmer finished his impassioned speech and the man turned in his seat to beam over at him.

"Thank you Anthony!"

But Gibbs shot him a look so full of venom then that Tony looked away with his face going crimson and busied himself again with stoking the fire.

"You say another word, DiNozzo, and you're finished here," Gibbs said from the desk in a voice that was all seriousness and Tony swallowed thickly.

"Oh leave him alone, Uncle Jethro. A man's entitled to his own opinions."

"Humbug," was all Gibbs replied with and a tense silence fell over the room and Gibbs went back to scratching at his paperwork with a pen.

"Look Uncle, I just wanted to swing by and invite you to Christmas dinner tomorrow night with Brianna and me. There won't be many people there, we expect the baby will come any day now, and she didn't think she could handle a big crowd so close to the due date so you won't have many people you'll have to talk to. Do you think you could make it?" As Palmer spoke his hopeful invite, Tony could tell that Gibbs was fuming. It was in the slight shake of his pen and the way the man kept his eyes trained on the paperwork in front of him instead of trying to level his nephew with that patented thousand yard disappointed stare; a stare Tony had been subjected to every day since he'd started working for the Director.

"Why the hell did you ever get married?" Gibbs asked gravely, reaching for some white out as he attacked a found mistake on the page with a vengeance.

"Why? Well, because I feel in love! The same reason why you married Aunt Shannon." Palmer finished and the room actually got colder despite the fire Tony was trying his best to build back up. The very air went still and Gibbs eyed his nephew with a narrowed murderous gaze that had Tony wondering if he was perhaps going to have to cover up a homicide along with his other Christmas festivities that night. Palmer clamped a hand over his mouth, painfully aware of what he'd just said, but offered no apology.

"Get the hell out of my office and take your infernal Merry Christmas with you," The warning in Gibbs voice was low but acidic and Palmer rose from his seat to stand before the desk.

"I'm sorry Uncle, I didn't come here intending to upset you. Brianna and I just wanted you to know the invitation to Christmas dinner still stands, just like every other year." Palmer's normal energy and exuberance had been doused, a common ailment in the office of Director Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and Tony was almost sorry for it.

"Get the hell out," Gibbs said again and Tony rose from his crouch in front of the now blazing fire to see the man out. As they left Gibbs' office Palmer seemed to peak back up and by the time they were at the outer door, he had the bounce back in his step and clapped Tony on the back before he left.

"A Merry Christmas to you and yours, Tony," Palmer said genuinely and then shook his hand vigorously. "Tell Ziva I said hello," and then was gone from the room. Tony was about to close the door behind him when two figures rushed in before he even had his hand on the door knob.

"Where is he?" One of them demanded angrily, a woman Tony recognized. She had been in and out of Gibbs' office over the past few days organizing a mission with the Director in Pakistan.

"In his office," Tony replied shortly. "Where else would he be?" It was long past 6pm now and Tony's thoughts were on the little boy waiting for him at home to come and take him to church and he had no patience for another interruption.

Instead of allowing Tony to announce them, the woman pushed past him, her wingman following behind, and they both burst into Gibbs' office without even a knock. He went after them and stood in the doorway to offer his boss a sheepish shrug when the man looked over at him angrily for yet another intrusion.

"Director Gibbs. I just got word that you ordered my troops to advance tonight. I promised them tonight and tomorrow off. It's Christmas for heaven's sake!" The woman spat angrily but Gibbs merely looked her over with a blank face.

"We needed to move on the intel we were given."

"That _'intel'_ is shoddy at best and you know it! You're sending those men into a danger zone and on Christmas Eve no less. You have to recall them!"

"I have to do nothing of the sort, Colonel Lindstrom." Gibbs replied dangerously. " My sources say the intel is good and I won't waste an opportunity to get my man."

"But what if it's an ambush?" the woman countered desperately. "What if your sources are wrong?"

"Then I'll see you bright an early tomorrow morning to go over a new strategy, wont I? Now, is there anything else I can help you with?"

It was cold, even Tony had to admit it, and both he and the two other people in the office with him stared at Gibbs with varying degrees of outrage and shock.

"I..." Colonel Lindstrom started but Gibbs interrupted her.

"Look Lindstrom, if you're that worried the intel isn't good then maybe you better spend the night in MTAC watching the satellite feeds. You can contact me on my cell if anything goes wrong." Lindstrom looked like she wanted to argue, Tony knew the woman had family at home, but the look Gibbs was giving warning her not to say another word had her deflating visibly.

"Of course. Sir. Whatever you say, Sir," she said quietly yet furiously and led the man she'd dragged along with her but that hadn't said anything from the room.

"DiNozzo," Gibbs said as Tony grabbed for the door to pull it shut. "If you let one more person into this office tonight, you're fired. No more visitors."

"You got it boss, but I'm heading out now. I'll lock the door behind me so that no one bothers you." He held his breath then, knowing that with the easiest of decisions his boss could ruin everything he had planned for the next few days by insisting he stay or come in tomorrow. His children's faces swam into his thoughts, Tim's especially, and he prayed to God that his boss wouldn't decide to be cruel.

"I suppose you'll be wanting tomorrow off," Gibbs started, walking over to the fire to warm his hands over it.

"I did request it, Sir and you approved it. It's only the one day and I'll be back in the next morning." He had the feeling he was bargaining which wasn't fair because he'd done everything he was supposed to do to get the time off. If Gibbs made him come in, it would be out of pure spite.

"Christmas is a poor excuse for abandoning your country every December the 25th, DiNozzo. It almost makes me wonder if you take this job seriously anymore.

"Come on boss, my kids," he pleaded and Gibbs looked over at him with something passing over his face that wasn't flickering firelight.

"Just make sure your ass is back in that chair by 0600 the day after. Now get the hell out of my office and make sure you lock that damn door behind you."

"Of course, boss. Merry Christmas!" Tony snapped the door to the inner office shut before Gibbs could round on him and change his mind and proceeded to do a short victory dance before the door, congratulating himself on his good fortune. Tim's face was going to light up when Tony picked him up for church and he gathered up his things as quickly as he could and practically ran from the office.

The DC city streets were alive with flickering lights, Christmas activity and all the sounds and smells of the season and Tony covered his head with a knitted cap Emily had made for him and had been too excited about to wait for Christmas to give to him. It was lumpy and lopsided but Tony wore it with all the pride of a proud Papa as he made his trek home through the snow.

Soft flakes, magical Christmas Flakes as Tiny Tim would no doubt inform him when he arrived at home, were falling down around his shoulders completing the picturesque holiday scene and Tony found himself walking a bit quicker towards the little apartment their family shared with a Polish bakery. Everyone would be gathered there when he got home, even Emily who should have arrived home from college this afternoon while he was at work. Yet even though they were all together to begin the joyful celebration of Christmas, it would be Tiny Tim who would accompany him to Christmas Eve Mass. It had become something of a tradition for the pair, the rest of the family attending the Christmas Day service, and Tony loved it. It made for good memories. And there would come a time all too soon when he would need all the soft, heartfelt remembrances of his young song he could get.

Pushing dark thoughts beyond his control aside, Tony distracted himself by wishing every single person he passed in the street a Very Merry Christmas and arrived on his front stoop half an hour later with ruddy cheeks, a grin plastered across his face, and arms opened to accept the frail little body that jumped into his arms.

"Tim, my man! What are you doing out here in the snow?"

"Waiting for you Papa," the young voice replied and Tony sat the child back down on his one good leg and helped him get his crutch up under his arm. Ziva had dressed him in a neat little suit with an old hat that had been her father's and was too big for the boy but looked good on him all the same, and Tony patted his head.

"Are you all ready to go?" The little boy nodded his head vigorously and offered up a wide, toothy grin that set Tony's heart to melting. He glanced up, spying his wife's form through the frosted panes of the upstairs windows and blew her a kiss before scooping Tim back up into his arms to place the light as a feather little body on his shoulder.

Tim's laughter filled the street and Tony could have sworn the snowflakes falling down around them laughed back at the clear, crystal sound.


	2. Chapter 2

As a little boy and his father made their way through the freshly fallen snow on their way to church, a lone man sat in an empty building trying to warm his hands over a fire that offered no warmth. Leroy Jethro Gibbs had always been a solitary man and that was the way he liked it. People were idiotic; sentimental fools who blindly gave away their hearts and their hard earned money for a stupid holiday he was fairly certain had been invented by the toy companies. Christmas did little more than congest already clogged city streets and fill the sidewalks of his usually no-nonsense town with the foot traffic of the criminally stupid. The crush of people pressing their noses against loud and gaudy storefront windows was enough to make him want to puke and he was glad he had a driver to weave him through it all safely tucked behind the smoked glass of his simple sedan's back windows. It was the one extravagance he allowed himself, that driver, though it angered him to no end every time he slid into the back of that car and knew it was costing him. He hadn't amassed an impressive fortune by squandering money, but even he had to admit the driver was necessary with the schedule he kept. And speaking of the driver and the late hour, Gibbs realized that there was no more business that could be done that day and left his place before the fire to gather up his things to leave.

He had his driver take back roads to avoid the choked main arteries of downtown and he arrived on the quite street outside his home faster than he had expected. Fernando rounded the corner of the car to let him out and Gibbs tossed the man a silver dollar, waiting to see how he would react. The insult would have driven most men to quit right then and there, a silver dollar hardly a customary tip for a family man missing Christmas Eve to drive a client home, but Gibbs had done a full background check on his driver and knew how much the man needed this job.

The ageing chauffer's face reddened a little, but he made no comment beyond a strangled "Good night then sir," as he folded himself back into the driver's seat. Smiling to himself, Gibbs made his way up the impeccably deiced walkway in front of his ageing house and fumbled for his keys in the dark.

Gibbs' home was a two story brownstone in a part of DC that had once been handsome and stately but was now a ghost of its former self. The neighborhood had gone to pot, but the mortgage was paid off, and Gibbs was content to sequester himself away in his dusty rooms while the hooligans and the homeless slowly took back over the streets. He had an impressive alarm system and a 12 gauge shotgun leaning against the wall just inside the front door and the people of the neighborhood knew not to disturb the owner of 112 East 60th Street.

Having no porch light to see by, Gibbs stepped away from the front door to fumble with his key ring when the one he was looking for refused to be found and was not expecting the voice that called his name suddenly from back beside the door.

"Giiiiiiiiiibs," a faint voice murmured as if brought up onto the porch by the wind, only there wasn't any wind tonight and Gibbs tried to swallow his heart back down out of his throat. A former Gunnery Sergeant in the Marines, his brain immediately clicked into battle mode and he fell into a crouch and peered into the gloom of his porch, trying to find the source of the whispered name. The light from a nearby street lamp was faint and his aging eyes might just have been playing tricks on him, but there appeared to be something hanging from the handsome lion door knocker that was now tarnished and unrecognizable and sat at the center of his door. Thinking himself safe, Gibbs straightened popping knees and cautiously walked over to inspect whatever it was.

His heart was beating madly away in his chest as he advanced, hand yearning to grip the cold shotgun just out of reach on the other side of a thin wall, and he squinted into the gloom trying to make out what it was that was affixed to his front door. Each careful step forward seemed to bring the object into further definition until he realized it was a face; some kind of powdery, corpse like Halloween mask that had an uncanny resemblance to his old friend and mentor, Leon Vance, who had been dead these seven years. It was someone's idea of a joke and Gibbs found himself laughing in relief when he reminded himself a plastic mask was hardly a threat and wouldn't attack him, but then the eyes of the mask opened revealing dark pools of black so ebony Gibbs stumbled backwards and cried out.

"GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIBS!" The face wailed and Jethro did the only thing he could think of. He struck out at the moving, writhing thing hanging from his door with the briefcase he still had clutched in his other hand and beat mercilessly at the door with eyes tightly closed. When he was fairly certain that whatever it was had to be dead, he opened his eyes again and searched the porch for the corpse. Only there wasn't anything there and he leaned in to inspect the door knocker for any evidence of what had just happened. But the doorknocker looked like it always did and Gibbs stood for a long moment just listening to the night around him. If it had been some kind of practical joke the perpetrators were certain to be around somewhere, but the night was completely still and not even the vagrants were out and about.

"Stupid kids," he sniffed, at last sliding the right key into the door and gaining entry into his house. He closed the heavy front door behind him with an irritated snap and a grumbled a "humbug" as he flipped on the light of the foyer. A lone empty and naked bulb swayed from the center of the ceiling in the gust of cold air Gibbs had brought in with him from outside and the swinging light cast strange shadows around the bottom level of his house. Nerves already frayed, he talked himself down when his brain began to imagine all manner of creature hiding in the dark ready to attack him, and scolded himself for being so childish. Darkness was not something he feared but rather embraced as an old friend.

Lighting a candle and not bothering with any more lights, Gibbs descended the stairs down into the basement of the house and to the little living area he'd created for himself down there beside an old unused woodshop and the decaying skeleton of an unfinished boat. Gas was expensive and frivolity he'd never allowed himself, so he lit a fire in the wood burning stove he'd dragged down there years ago to warm himself and the basement up and set an old camping kettle to boil. He pulled the half eaten remnants of his lunch from his briefcase and settled in to a high backed chair that had been in the basement when he'd bought the house. It was quiet and secluded, and Gibbs liked it.

The flames of the fire were especially warm and Gibbs found himself nodding off earlier than he usually did which surprised him, but those thoughts were forgotten when one of the dusty tools on a far wall of the basement shuddered against the masonry wall and clattered to the floor loudly enough to make Gibbs jump. It was the second time that night his heart had migrated to the back of his throat and he chastised himself for being so easily startled.

Pulling himself up out of the chair he went to inspect the source of the noise. It was an old wrench lying rusted and weathered on the floor and he picked it up and placed it back on its nail, seeing no obvious reason for why it should have fallen and furrowing his brow at the puzzle. But as he turned to leave the noise repeated and this time the wrench came to rest right behind his left ankle, bouncing a little off his foot as it stopped. Gibbs turned around slowly and bent to pick it up again only this time more tools started jingling on their nails and Gibbs backed away with eyes as wide as saucers as every single tool on the wall began to vibrate and kick up plumes of dust. The cadence of the colloquy built and built until Gibbs was covering his ears with his palms and falling to his knees on the floor. And with one more brutal swell of sound, every last wrench, vice, screw driver and nail fell from the wall and crashed to the concrete floor at his knees. He blinked stupidly at the mess, clouds of dust rising from the floor as if the pile of tools were on fire, unable to process what had just happened and turned his head without thinking when his name again was spoken.

Standing at the top of his basement stairs, dressed in the same clothes they had buried him in, stood the spectral vision of Leon Vance. Gibbs brought a hand up to cover his mouth as it hung open in shock and Vance began descending the staircase, the wall beyond visible through his opaque form, a mass of chains and lock boxes, heavy padlocks and keys following along behind him like the tattered remnants of a shredded wedding gown.

Gibbs made himself get to his feet and backed away from the advancing specter until his back hit the old wooden frame of a long abandoned boat.

"Leon?" He sputtered, cringing at the sight of his long dead friend standing before him, decaying and molting before his very eyes. "But your dead."

"Astute observation Gibbs," the ghost intoned, sounding enough like Leon to give Gibbs the courage to pull himself away from the protection of the boat and stand tall.

"You can't be here Leon, it's impossible!"

"Oh it's possible Jethro." The ghost replied, spreading its arms and rattling a length of chain in the process. "I'm as real as you are."

Gibbs shook his head as much to deny what he was hearing as to try and shake himself away from whatever nightmare he'd fallen into. There was something seriously wrong with him. He had to be hallucinating or something. "Someone got to me, didn't they? Poison? Some psychotropic nerve agent?"

"No, Gibbs, I assure you, I'm quite real and you're just fine. Well, physically anyway."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You're doomed Jethro and someone up there must still like you because they let me come back and warn your sorry ass." Vance smiled, teeth visible through the holes eaten through his lips by decay. "So listen up cause I'm only going to say this once.

You see these chains? They're mine for all eternity Gibbs because of the life I chose to lead on earth. After my wife was killed I let the darkness eat away at me until I became a monster and now I'm paying the ultimate price."

"You weren't a monster, Leon." Gibbs interrupted, pained to hear his old friend speaking of himself that way, even if it was just a hallucination. "You did what had to be done, made the hard calls when no one else could."

"Well I shouldn't have, Gibbs. I should have stepped aside and let more qualified men run NCIS."

"That's bulls..." but Vance raised his hands, clanking the chains hanging from them loudly and bellowed.

"LET ME FINISH!" And Gibbs flinched back from the force of his anger.

"You've gone hard Gibbs and you've forgotten what it means to love your fellow men, and you're forging yourself a chain that's already twice the size and length of the one I now carry! If you don't turn from the path your on, it's into the fires of hell with you!

You will be visited tonight by the ghosts of three spirits. Expect the first ghost when the bell tolls one."

Gibbs shook his head and eyed the hallucination before him with a contemptuous look. "Three ghosts? Why not send them all at once so we can just get this over with." Was this really how he was going to go out? Out of his mind and hallucinating ghosts?

"You don't believe me." Vance said with the whisper of a smile.

"Oh, I believe you Leon. I just also believe I need to go to the ER as soon as we're done here and have my stomached pumped."

"Ever the smartass." Vance replied and shifted again to lean in close to Gibbs. Vance was even more grotesque up close and he tried not to flinch away as the hallucination neared him. "The fires of hell are eternal, Gibbs. Heed what the spirits tell you this night before it's too late." And Vance disappeared in an instant. It was like blowing out a candle only as soon as the specter blinked out of existence before him the lights came up rather than out and Gibbs was standing beside a tool wall that was as perfectly organized and as dust covered as it had been an hour ago.

Jethro ran a shaky hand across his face and contemplated dragging himself into the ER but imagined it was probably the last place he wanted to be for the next eight hours. His pulse was okay, he wasn't vomiting or foaming at the mouth, so maybe whatever he had been dosed with had run it's course. Vance's ghost had been a hallucination, of that he was completely sure, but the fact that his brain had chosen to conjure Leon's decaying form as the manifestation of the hallucination was disconcerting. He wondered what it meant and chewed on some different ideas as he walked back over to his fire and the familiar high-backed chair.

"Humbug," he muttered and let his eyelids droop just as the clock in the church a few streets over chimed the hour of one.


	3. Chapter 3

He'd only meant to close his eyes for a moment but when Gibbs jerked awake after what felt like hours of sleep, his little basement was as frigid as the December night outside. A pale blue light, almost resembling a winder dawn, illuminated everything around him and he sat up suddenly remembering Leon's words of warning.

Expect the first ghost when the bell tolls one.

But it had to be well past one in the morning now if the crick in his neck from sleeping in the chair for so long was any indication, and he peered around his basement looking for any sign of lurking ghosts. There were none and he leaned back into his chair, unsettled. The fire in the stove lay smoking and low and he shivered a bit before reaching out to throw a few more logs in and stoke it back to health. Rising from his seat Gibbs stretched a little then made for the military cot set up on the floor on the other side of the stove and started to get ready for bed. It was cold so he covered his head with a black hat left over from his military days and pulled on the warmest sweatpants he owned along with an old college hoodie and started to crawl under his paltry blankets.

"Nothing like a nice dungeon basement to spend Christmas in, eh Gibbs?" Hearing the voice coming from somewhere over his shoulder Gibbs spun around with fists up anticipating attack and came face to face with the strangest person he had ever seen. The woman, standing as solid and real as any person could be a few feet away from him, was smiling from behind red painted lips, full on goth makeup and with jet black hair pulled into twin pigtails on either side of her head. She was dressed in tall boots, a short black leather skirt and a green t-shirt that loudly proclaimed Scientists Do It, Periodically superimposed over a picture of the periodic table of elements. Apparently his hallucinations were far from over.

"Who the hell are you?" he grumbled.

"Why I'm the ghost of Christmas Past." She said with a smile and walked forward, right through his wood burning stove like she was made of little more than air.

Gibbs shrank back, startled.

"Wow, Leon warned me you'd be a tough sell but I see he really wasn't kidding. I'm real, Gibbs. I swear and we're gonna take a little trip if you think you can handle it." She said as if mocking him.

But Gibbs wasn't having it. "I'm not going anywhere with you, lady." He said resolutely. "Who's doing this to me? What do they want? The United States government doesn't negotiate with terrorists so if it's money you're after, not gonna happen."

"Ok, tough nut, but we'll make this work."

The "spirit" before him stood straight and pointed a finger at him, speaking her next words like she was trying to say them as overdramatically and as spookily as possible: "I am here for your salvation Leroy Jethro Gibbs! Come, take my hand and I will show you the long forgotten past!" Gibbs blinked and the spirit dropped her hand with a sigh. "Oh just get over here and take my damn hand already."

"And what if I do? Where will you take me?"

"Uh, the past." She replied sarcastically looking him over with bemusement. ...Did you hit your head or something? Am I stuttering?" The spirit took a step forward and when Gibbs backpedaled away, she laughed. It was a squeaky thing that made him cringe. "Come on Gibbs! Where's that Gunnery Sergeant courage I've heard so much about? Take my hand, I won't let you fall."

Figuring he might as well let the hallucinations play out as they would and seeing no sense in resisting, Gibbs took a tentative step forward and grabbed the hand held out to him, expecting his own to pass right through it. But there was actual flesh beneath his grip, albeit icy, but still there all the same. The spirit had a spiked bracelet on that reminded Gibbs a little of a cat collar, and so many bangles half her arm was covered in them. He couldn't help but wonder what crazy recess of his mind had conjured this particular apparition.

No sooner had Gibbs placed his hand in the spirit's then the basement around him was dissolving and he suddenly found himself standing in the middle of his father's store. Dropping the spirit's hand, he took a few steps forward as he spied the tops of two young boys' heads as they raced through the aisles.

"Hey! I know those boys! I used to go to school with them. Chuck and Eddie!" He exclaimed, getting a little excited and forgetting for a moment that he was supposed to not be taking this seriously. "Boys! Come here!" but the two boys ran from the store on a jingle of bells and the spirit came to stand beside him.

"I guess I shoulda mentioned that no one can see or hear you."

"Why not?" He asked, kind of bummed he couldn't interact with his own visions.

"They're just memories, Gibbs. You're memories. And speaking of you, I think I spy mini-Gibbs right over there." The spirit pointed in another direction, but Gibbs knew what he would see when he lifted his head to look where she was gesturing. He remembered this memory now and why he could recall the names of those boys perfectly even after all these years.

Gibbs forced his sightline over to a secluded corner of the shop where a small boy sat crying quietly to himself as he held a rag to a cut on the side of his face that was still bleeding. Eddie Gantry and Chuck Winslow had terrorized him for years, even into their high school days, until his father had put a stop to it one year with a shotgun blast over the two boys' heads.

"You spent a lot of afternoons in this shop, didn't you?" The spirit asked and he nodded.

"My father owned it and I was cheap labor. I missed out on a lot of things because of that job." Gibbs mused and then looked over to the front of the store when a bell tinkled, announcing that someone had come in. Something warm flooded into the center of his chest, chipping away just the slightest, smallest bit of ice, and he looked on the face of his mother for the first time in years. She had snow in her hair and concern in her eyes and she walked toward his younger self even though the boy had turned away to try and hide his face.

"Leroy, honey, are you alright?" She asked and Gibbs had to swallow thickly. He'd forgotten how musical her voice had been and watched his seven or eight year old self drop the tough guy facade and run into her arms.

"Awww, Gii-iibbs!" The spirit said beside him and he glared over at her.

"Can we just go now?" He asked a little shortly and the spirit nodded with a laugh, putting out her hand for him to take with something sparking behind her eyes. He ignored it grabbed hold of the hand.

When the scene around him reformed he found himself standing in the middle of a high school gym, _his_ high school gym to be specific, and it was covered from floor to ceiling in Christmas decorations. Every available inch sparkled, twinkled, winked and glowed with the color of Christmas and he recognized the memory almost instantly. It was the Stillwater community Christmas party his parents had dragged him to every single stinking year, only this particular year he had come on his own. The dancing, smiling people that had cropped up around Gibbs and the spirit parted as if by some spell, and Gibbs spied yet another younger version of himself in full dress uniform holding his arms open as a lovely girl, wearing a dress as red as her hair, jumped into his embrace.

"Oh my God, Gibbs! Look at how handsome you are!" The spirit squealed as they watched the young couple embrace and Gibbs' younger self lift the girl from the floor to twirl her around.

"I don't want to see this!" He cried, turning away from the scene before him to plead with his guide. "Please, there has to be some other memory you can take me to," but the spirit only shook her head sadly.

"These are important memories Gibbs. Now watch!" She scolded and gently grabbed his shoulder in her icy grip to turn him around so they could both observe the exchange happening at the end of the dance floor.

"Gibbs, I'm so glad you made it home!" The young girl was gushing, hugging him close with tears in her eyes and Jethro made himself watch his younger self hold the girl tight.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world! God Shannon, I missed you every day. I got all your letters though, thank you for writing them. I don't think I would have gotten through boot camp without you." Gibbs watched his younger self sweep Shannon into a deep dip after placing her back on her feet then kiss her thoroughly, right in front of a crowd of clapping party goers. When they righted themselves she laughed as her cheeks reddened in embarrassment and it cracked a hole open at Gibbs' center. Oh how he had loved that woman.

"I have a surprise for you," Past Shannon said with a gleam in her eyes.

"But I already have everything I want right here," his younger self replied coyly, pulling her into his arms and she laughed again when he kissed her neck. If it had been any other couple, the older Gibbs watching the disgustingly romantic display in front of him would have had something to say about the PDA. But Gibbs could still remember what it was like to hold Shannon in his arms. What it felt to be loved by her: so completely like he was the center of the universe to her.

"Listen," Shannon whispered and Gibbs could hear the whispered word as if he were standing right beside her. A moment later the band began playing a familiar tune and it effected Gibbs more than he dared admit. He watched his younger self pull Shannon to the center of the dance floor, envelop her in his arms and circle her slowly about the room. He'd forgotten how much he enjoyed dancing and that there had been a time when he'd actually been good at it and he watched his past self and the woman he had loved so completely get lost in each other for immeasurable moments. When the sprit stepped in closer to him as if sensing his change in mood, he looked away and cleared his throat.

"Come on, Gibbs. There's still more to see and I've got a schedule to keep." The spirit said mischievously and held out her hand. The dancing couples melted away but the decorations remained and morphed until he was standing in another festively decorated place, only this was even more familiar than the high school gym.

"You brought me home!" He started, looking around his own foyer, but his exclamation was cut off by a tumbling, thumping noise coming from the stairs at his left. Thundering down the stairscase, pulling an older version of himself than had been at the party Gibbs and the sprit had just left, was his daughter Kelly.

"Come on, Daddy, you promised! One present and my stocking while mommy makes the coffee!" the small girl cried, pulling a sleep tousled and bleary eyed younger version of Gibbs down the stairs.

"Now that has got to be the cutest darn thing I've ever seen," The spirit gushed, floating forward as the pair in the memory made their way into an inviting family room complete with decorated tree and more presents than Gibbs had ever seen. He followed the spirit into the room and stayed in the doorway while the spirit joined his daughter on the floor to look at the gifts under the tree. When the spirit started pointing out good prospects even though the young girl was completely oblivious to her presence, Gibbs almost found himself laughing.

He thought of his assistant suddenly; DiNozzo's face swimming to the forefront of his confused thoughts as he watched the memory of his daughter exclaim in delight at the goodies in her emptied stocking. DiNozzo would be doing this with his own children and Gibbs had nearly ruined it for him by demanding he come in on Christmas day.

"What are you thinking about?" The spirit asked, rising from her place beside Kelly and coming to stand beside him again.

"It's nothing." He deflected but the spirit was giving him a look he knew meant she would not be letting it lie. "I was just thinking about my assistant is all. I almost made him come in on Christmas day and it would have meant he missed this moment with his own kids."

"You had a beautiful family," the spirit said sadly but Gibbs didn't respond back, just looked back over at the happy face of his daughter as she played with her new trinkets, something that felt a little like fondness steeling over him. He hadn't let himself think of these Christmases in a long time and he'd forgotten just how wonderful they really were.

"You had another memorable Christmas with your family, didn't you?"

Gibbs knew right away what she was referring to and he felt his eyes go wide. "Please, spirit, not that! I'll go to any other part of my past with you that you want, just don't make me go there!" He pleaded but the Spirit merely put her hand out and touched his shoulder in an icy grip. The festively decorated family room around them melted away and when Gibbs was once again aware of himself, he found that he had been transported to the one place he'd avoided for nearly 20 years.

It was a quiet place and snow had fallen earlier in the day so that a blanket of white lay over everything as far as the eye could see. The sun had just sunk below the horizon and it was one of those rare crystal clear nights without a cloud in the sky and the stars burning brightly like a billion tiny flickering Christmas lights. The ground beneath Gibbs' feet was frozen but even though he wore nothing but socks, his feet didn't feel the cold.

The spirit had placed them just behind the bent and shaking form of a solitary man who was kneeling before twin grave stones carefully cleaned of snow. Though it was only moonlight that now illuminated the small Stillwater Cemetery, the engraved names of Shannon and Kelly Gibbs still glinted in the pale winter twilight.

"Why did you bring me hear?" He choked, unable to hide the effect the visions were having on him any longer and he buried his head in his hands. He couldn't watch this.

"Because this is where everything changed for you, Gibbs," the spirit replied sadly, losing all of her earlier mirth. When he lifted his head and looked over at her she had a sadness in her eyes and he had to turn away again. "This is the moment where you gave up."

"My first Christmas without them," he said brokenly. "You know if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were getting a kick out of torturing me with all this."

"Now now, Gibbs. No need to be rude. These are the visions of the past. I don't write the script, just screen the film."

"I don't want to be here anymore. Take me back!" He demanded, clenching his hands into fists to keep from striking out at something.

The spirit sighed heavily. "Expect the next ghost when the bell tolls two" she said then and with one touch, Gibbs found himself back in his basement and seated on his cot, warm tears gathered at the sides of his eyes but held back before they could fall. He fell back wearily against his blankets and knew no more for a time.


	4. Chapter 4

Gibbs was torn from the disquiet of his dreams by a penetrating white light that filled his tiny basement to near bursting with its brilliance. Jumping up from his cot on the floor and instantly awake, he dove behind the remnants of a bygone boating project and reached for a sidearm that wasn't there beneath his sweats. If terrorists were going to keep trying to infiltrate his home and poison him to death, he was going to have to remember to keep a gun beneath the bed.

Hearing no one descend the steps or call out his name, Gibbs peered around the boat's stern even as the bright white light began to fade, and he could tell now that the illumination was streaming in to the basement from the door at the top of the stairs; right where Leon had appeared to him uncountable hours ago. It all seemed to be coming from somewhere on the upper levels and Gibbs made his way slowly forward and up the rickety old wooden staircase that connected basement to main living area. It was ridiculous, being reduced to slinking around his own home, and if he came face to face with another spirit on the main level, he decided right then and there that he was going to blast it full of buckshot, his soul be damned.

When he finally reached the top the stairs Gibbs thought for a moment that he was back in the past again because as he emerged from the basement and into the foyer, his entryway was once again decorated in bows of pine, sprigs of holly, twinkling lights and was that roasting turkey he smelled? Just what the hell was going on here? He grabbed for the shotgun just inside the front door, secured it firmly beneath his arm and walked towards the family room which seemed to house the source of the light. It had diminished to a more manageable level now and one he no longer had to squint into or hold his hand up against. When a floorboard creaked beneath his feet, Gibbs froze.

"I hear you out there in the hall, Jethro. Come in and know me better man!" A jolly voice, regally accented and so friendly Gibbs found himself striding into the family room without fear, called to him from the room within. Rounding the corner and steeling himself should he once again be faced with the past and another vision of his long dead family, he was surprised to find the room filled to the brim with every delicacy, drink, and Christmas adornment imaginable. And seated amidst it all was a shorter, bespectacled gentlemen in a white lab coat complete with festive bow tie and a cloth fishing hat. He seemed to be some kind of mix between scientist, professor, and all around good natured fellow and Gibbs decided in an instant he liked this manifestation the best thus far.

"You the next spirit who's supposed to visit me?" He asked simply, masking any hint of his approval of the stately, albeit strangely dressed, individual standing before him.

"Right you are my boy! I am the ghost of Christmas Present. Come in! Come in, and know me better, man!" The spirit waived him further into the room with a welcoming smile that Gibbs couldn't help but return in his own bewildered way.

"You said that already."

"What did I say already Jethro?"

"To come in and know you better?"

"I did? Heaven's me! I don't often visit this planet and when I do its rarely to speak to the living. You must forgive me if I seem rather excited." Sensing no imminent danger from the fellow who was chuckling at his own self-depreciation, Gibbs left his shotgun leaning against a wall and took up a seat beside a roaring fire the spirit herded him into. To his utter astonishment, the apparition before him conjured another chair as if from thin air on the other side of the fire then set himself into it like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Much better," the spirit smiled, laughing a little as he settled in. "What say we have some refreshment before we get started?" And with a flourish of hands a handsome table was laid out between the two with every food Gibbs had ever been fond of in his life. But while his mouth watered at the sight for the briefest of moments, it didn't take his brain long to kick in and warn him not to touch a bite.

"Oh for heaven's sake, Jethro. I'm not trying to poison you. At least have something to drink!"

"Only my mother calls me Jethro," he warned but the spirit just started laughing again. He seemed to be stuck in some kind of perpetual laughing fit.

"Ah, the infamous Gibbs humor. You're famous in some circles, you know," but Gibbs, having never had a sense of humor, even as a child, didn't believe it for a second.

Figuring he had nothing to lose, he picked up a heavy golden goblet from the table in front of him and sipped at the clear cold liquid sloshing around at the bottom of it. It was some kind of wine and it sparkled in the flickering family room light.

"What is it?" He asked, setting the cup down after only a few sips, brain still trying to suggest it was druged.

"Happiness, kindness, love, and just the smallest pinch of regret so as not to drop you," the spirit answered with a wink and Gibbs eyed him warily.

"Whatever that means," he grumbled, but there was no real bite behind it. The wine sat warm in the center of him and the warmth was spreading.

"Well, if you're quite ready, Jethro," the spirit started, either forgetting or ignoring Gibbs' earlier warning that only his mother called him by his given name, "let's get this show on the road - as they say - shall we?" The ghost of Christmas Present rose from his chair and walked to the windowed family room alcove. Unsure of what the spirit had planned, Gibbs followed cautiously.

"Where are we going?"

"Why to see the world, my friend!" the man exclaimed, throwing his arms wide in front of the windows as a faint light began to grow in the sky outside.

Gibbs peered out into the lightening night. "What is that?"

"Christmas Morning!" the spirit exclaimed. "Can't you tell?" and as the spirit laughed the brilliant light that had blinded Gibbs earlier burst from the sky like an atom bomb and engulfed them entirely. And when it receded, gone was the family room and all its finery and Gibbs found himself standing in the middle of a DC street, tucked back off one of the main routes through town. The street was lined on either side with little shops and the spirit had set them before a closed up Polish bakery. Gibbs was about to turn around and ask his guide what the point to visiting a closed business was when the sound of carried voices from down the lane stopped him. Gibbs turned his head instead to look down the street in the direction of the voices and spied his assistant, DiNozzo, jaunting down the sidewalk with a small child perched on his shoulder. The pair were finishing a rousing chorus of Jingle Bells and laughing as the young boy on DiNozzo's shoulder substituted the last stanza with a silly rhyme about Batman.

Gibbs watched the two approach them and almost started to call out to Tony but remembered what the first spirit said to him.

"They can't see or hear me, can they?" He asked, already knowing the answer. The bespectacled old spirit shook his head.

"And more the better for them, I think," the ghost replied a little playfully but Gibbs ignored the jab. He was too caught up in the scene before him. Tony and his young son were speaking to each other as they neared where Gibbs and his newest spirit guide stood in the street.

"Dad, do you think I could work for NCIS someday like you do?" The child was asking, looking down at his father from his perch on a shoulder.

"Tim, you can do anything you want to! The worlds yours, kid." Gibbs realized in that instant he'd never even known that Tony's son's name was Tim.

"Can I be Superman?" The little boy asked seriously.

"Well, that depends, are we talking like Christopher Reeves', Superman or Brenden Roth's, Superman."

Tony's son made a face, "Christopher Reeves, Dad. Duh."

"Then yes! Only you'll need a secret identity, like Superman has Clark Kent."

"But what should it be?" the child asked, tapping his chin in a way Gibbs had seen Tony do sometimes.

"Something simple," DiNozzo said, "you don't want to draw too much attention to yourself and Timothy DiNozzo just won't do. We're too famous about town! How about something like Timmy McGee or Timothy Smith. You can't go wrong with Timothy Smith!" Tony suggested and his young son collapsed into a fit of giggles even as Tony pulled him down off his shoulder and set him back on his feet in front of the bakery to fish for house keys. But just as Tony set young Timothy down and handed the child a little crutch, the little boy's legs collapsed beneath him and Tim lost his footing and fell sideways into the snow. Gibbs stepped forward without thinking, some hidden instinct he hadn't felt in a very long time alighting inside of him, but Tony was there to catch the young lad before any permanent injury could be done and pulled him back into his arms.

"Must be Kryptonite around, huh Tim?" Tony said with a sad smile, brushing away a tear from the lad's face before it could track down his cheek. "Come on, Mama's waiting for us."

"Let's follow them in," the spirit suggested, pushing a little at Gibbs' back with an icy cold prod. Gibbs thought about resisting, but let the spirit guide him forward.

Tony lived on top of the bakery they had arrived in front of and as Gibbs ascended the stairs behind Tony and his son, he noted the peeling paint and threadbare carpet on the stairs. There was obviously something wrong with Tony's youngest and the tall narrow stairs must have been murder on him and Gibbs couldn't imagine why his assistant would ever want to live in a place like this with a sickly kid. He wished he was corporeal in that instant so he could pull the stupid man aside and give him a piece of his mind.

When the group arrived up at the top of the stairs the door opened on a tiny apartment and a beautiful dark haired woman Gibbs had never met before admitted the two into the apartment with a wide smile that lit up her whole face. Tony's wife was beautiful; olive skinned with kind eyes.

"Merry Christmas, Mommy!" Tiny Tim exclaimed as Tony passed him over to his mother.

"Happy day after Chanukah my little monkey!" Ziva exclaimed, shooting a questioning look over at Tony when she found her son's pants damp from his earlier fall. Tony shook his head slightly in some hidden language known only to husbands and wives; a language Gibbs had known once upon a time himself but had long forgotten.

"Peter! Emily! Tim and your dad are home!" Tony's wife called out and an older boy of 12 or 13 who was the spitting image of Tony and a college age girl came running from the back of the tiny apartment to welcome the pair. Gibbs and the spirit managed to squeeze themselves in just as Tony closed the door after hugging his two oldest and Peter and Emily helped their brother into a small wheel chair and out of his winter coat then pushed him off into the living room to watch some Christmas movie playing on the small screen TV.

"Don't get too wrapped up in that, guys. Dinner's almost ready!" Tony's wife called out as the kids went off, and DiNozzo wrapped an arm around his wife's waist before she could head back to the kitchen. She turned and threw her arms around his neck. Gibbs and the spirit watched from the wall.

"Why was he all wet?" She asked quietly and Tony kissed her cheek before pulling away to take off his own coat.

"He fell in the snow outside the apartment. No harm done."

"You should have left him here this morning." She scolded a little. "Church last night and then the soup kitchen this morning was too much for him."

"I know, but I just couldn't say no to the little guy. He might not get another chance to do all this and you know what he said to me on our way there?"

Ziva shook her head, "No, what?"

"He said he hoped everyone we met today would see him with his little crutch and remember who it was that made lame beggars walk and blind men see."

"You let that child watch too many movies, Tony. That imagination of his is going to run off with him one of these days."

"Good! I hope it does because it beats him sitting around this tiny apartment all day feeling sorry for himself."

"Well you know who we have to thank for that," Ziva replied, crinkling her nose in disgust.

"Come on, Ziva. Don't start that, not today. It's Christmas."

"Your holiday, Tony," she bit back, fingering the Star of David at her throat, "Not mine." But instead of getting angry Tony just smiled and pulled his protesting wife back into his arms again.

"Stop that. I don't give you a hard time when it's Rosh Hashanah, do I." he chided lightly and tried to kiss Ziva but she pulled away with a laugh.

"I hate it when you do that!"

"Do what?" Tony asked with faked outrage.

"Try and distract me like that," He made to move towards her again but Ziva took off towards the apartment's small kitchen, calling over her shoulder as she went. "Go get your children. It's almost time for diner."

Gibbs watched from his place against the wall just inside the front door as the DiNozzo family gathered around a small table with Tiny Tim given the place of honor at the head. The little boy beamed and Tony placed a perfectly bronzed turkey on the table in front of him and began to help him carve. Tiny Tim took his job very seriously and chewed on his bottom lip absently as he tried to do exactly as his father instructed with the sharp knife and when he'd amassed a decent sized plate of carved turkey, the family burst into a round of applause. Tony tousled his son's hair affectionately and leaned down to kiss the crown of the small boy's head and Gibbs didn't miss the slight glisten to his assistant's eyes or how he lingered just a second or two longer than he needed to.

"Ok, guys," Tony announced after straitening up and grabbing a glass of wine from the table, "Now that Master Tim has carved the turkey but before we eat, would you raise your glasses please?" Ziva and the children lifted milk and wine alike and the three kids started to giggle for some reason.

"Now, I know this is usually the part of the meal when I make some silly Christmas speech and thank Alvin and the Chipmunks, John Denver and Johnny Mathis for the wonderful music and Jimmy Stewart, National Lampoon and Garfield for the excellent entertainment, but seeing as how this is the time of year for giving thanks, I'd like to raise a glass to Director Gibbs this year." Tony finished boldly and Gibbs started. DiNozzo was toasting him? After making him work in the dark with no heat? After paying him barely more than the NCIS office night watchman made, the man could still find it in him to remember Gibbs at his family's paltry meal? He shook his head at the thought and something tightened in his throat. But the rest of the table dwellers apparently didn't share DiNozzo's sentiments and three glasses thudded back onto the dinner table, all except for Tiny Tim who hadn't lifted his own to begin with and had sat back in his chair as if exhausted, watching everything unfold in silence but with wide and observant eyes.

"You've got to be kicking me, Tony." Ziva said, stunned.

"It's 'kidding', my dear and no, I'm not. Director Gibbs' generosity put this roof over our heads and the food on our table. We owe him our thanks!"

"All that man's 'generosity' has given us is an apartment that's too small and all the misery we could ask for, you especially. He puts you through hell love! How can you ask us to drink to him?"

"Mom's right, Dad," the daughter Emily piped in. "He's a tyrant!"

"Oh come on you guys, it's Christmas!" Tony pleaded to the dour faces around the table. "Please? For me?"

"Oh fine!" Ziva conceded finally, picking up her glass again with Peter and Emily following suit begrudgingly. "But I'm only doing it for your sake, Tony, and for the wonderful man that you are to think of such a stingy old miser at Christmas."

"I'll take it," Tony replied with a smile and raised his glass high in the air. "To Director Gibbs. May he find some happiness this Christmas day and to my beautiful family. May God Bless us all the days of our lives."

"God bless us," came a small voice from the head of the table, "every one."

"Here here, Master Timothy," Tony smiled at his son with a wink and the family clinked their glasses before diving into their meal. Gibbs watched his assistant settle in to help his youngest; Tiny Tim seeming to have lost all his energy and turned to the ghost standing next him to question him.

"What's the matter with the kid?" He asked a little roughly and the spirit's eyes went sad.

"He's very ill and not long for the world I'm afraid."

"Wait, you mean he's going to die?" Gibbs asked incredulously, the news effecting him more than he would have expected. "What the hell does he have? Isn't there something that can be done?"

"Oh there's something that can be done alright, but the DiNozzo's just don't have the resources to find it. Anthony has done his best, but I fear his efforts will have been in vain. I see a little empty wheelchair beside the table and a crutch without an owner."

"But if things changed, if someone helped them, is there a chance he could live?" Gibbs asked, ideas pooping into his head, and the spirit took him completely by surprise when he started to laugh.

"Why Jethro, is that concern I hear in your voice? Tiny Tim seems to keep Christmas as well as any other man on earth, should he not be thrown out the back of an F-17 with nothing but his own turkey for a parachute?" Anger shot through his veins at having his own words used against him, but before he could offer back some nasty retort, his focus was again pulled back to the family. Tony had taken Tiny Tim up into his arms and the family was saying goodnight to the boy who looked pale and trembled in his father's arms as he wished everyone a goodnight and received a kiss from each member of his family in turn. As Tony disappeared down the hall, the spirit once more addressed Gibbs.

"Come now, Jethro, there is much to see and my time grows short." And without warning, Gibbs was pulled from the tiny little apartment above the bakery spirited away to be dropped unceremoniously in the middle of a house party. Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree was blaring from a stereo behind him and a handful of drunken party goers were dancing away near the speakers.

"Where the hell are we now!" Gibbs yelled over the music, glaring at the spirit and still trying to get his wits about him after being so suddenly thrust from a quiet apartment and in to a loud house party. Thankfully a moment later someone turned off the music and Gibbs turned to see his nephew Palmer addressing a crowd of people.

"Okay guys, my lovely wife says it's time for me to play and since she's extremely pregnant at the moment," Palmer turned and bowed to a woman sitting in a chair, hand resting on her very pregnant belly and smiling away proudly, "she's the boss. So any requests?"

Gibbs furrowed his brow confused as a several people around the room shouted out various Christmas tunes and Palmer made his way over to a baby grand piano set up in one corner of the living room. He sat himself down on the bench, opened the piano to reveal pristine back and white keys, and began to play without any sheet music as Gibbs watched him with eyes gone wide in shock. The room was at once filled with the merry noise of an old carol and Gibbs stood rooted in place as the music washed over him. Palmer attacked the tune with gusto and his fingers were a blur as they raced across the keys. Gibbs' sister Eleanor had played just like that and memories of her bombarded him as Palmer pounded away at piano. His lovely sister, snatched from this world too soon after having the baby of a man who'd left her with nothing but a broken heart. He closed his eyes and tried to push that darling face from his mind. He hadn't been kind to her that last year of her life, blaming her for having a baby out of wedlock and continuing to blame her even after she died, transferring that culpability to her son even after her death. Palmer was more like Ellie than he ever imagined and he lamented his decision to treat him so abysmally.

"He's amazing," Someone said at his elbow and Gibbs turned his head to find that the spirit had come up beside him.

"He is," Gibbs admitted and went back to watching his nephew's hands. The movement was memorizing and the music... beautiful.

"He does this every year, did you know?" Gibbs shook his head. He didn't know, but he did now and maybe there would be time to rectify that. He suddenly wanted to know the man sitting at the piano, playing it like his life depended on it; wanted to know him and see if there was any more of Ellie hidden in there somewhere.

After Palmer finished his mini Christmas concert, he rose from the piano bench to a round of genuine applause that Gibbs joined in with without even realizing. His nephew blushed a little at the praise then announced that it was time for games. Someone suggested charades and Gibbs groaned.

"Really?" He snorted, turning towards the spirit. "My salvation hinges on the bad party games my nephew plays at his lame Christmas party?"

But the spirit just chuckled at him. "The way you said that just now Jethro, I might actually suspect you're beginning to believe all this."

Gibbs looked away with an indignant sigh and watched the group organize themselves into teams and then begin the game. If he had attended the party he never would have participated, but as the friends got up one by one to act out the various scenarios outlined on their cards, even Gibbs had to admit it was fun. Some were better than others and one young man in particular stole the show with his antics. When it Palmer's turn came, he didn't even take slip of paper.

"I don't need one," he said mischievously when his wife reminded him he hadn't picked and Palmer's group started chatting away together trying to guess what he might use for his turn. Breena shushed them all from her chair and Palmer got ready.

Palmer stood in the center of the game space and pulled on some sort of invisible hat and outfit before crouching down and pretending to brandish a gun. Gibbs yelled out "Soldier!" forgetting that he was nothing but a silent observer and reddened a little when the spirit behind him chuckled. Someone else called out the same guess and he glared over at them and then at the spirit. Palmer made an indication that they were close then folded his arms across his chest and set his mouth into a deep scowl and glared at the next person to venture a guess. A second later his wife pulled in a shocked breath that had everyone in the living room turning towards her in concern. Palmer dropped the act immediately and ran forward to check on her but she stopped him with a laugh.

"No, sweetheart, I'm fine!" She said, putting up her hands. "I just realized who you're impersonating, that's all! It's your Uncle Jethro!" Palmer's wife exclaimed and the party goers all started to laugh as Gibbs sat fuming where he stood. It wasn't funny and he would have yelled would it have done any good.

"Okay, I get it." Gibbs said, turning towards the sprit. "Can we go now?" but his guide had taken a seat in a chair near the back of the room and Gibbs walked over to where he sat looking tired.

"You okay?" He asked and the ghost looked up at him.

"'Fraid not, old boy. I believe my time with you is over."

"Oh," He replied shortly, finding himself oddly gloomy that this particular spirit was leaving so soon. "Are you going to take me back to my place first?"

"No, Jethro, but I leave you in the capable hands of a colleague. Go forth an know him better man." The spirit said, nodding at someone behind Gibbs and when he turned around it was to an empty living room, all the party goers having vanished, and a hooded and cloaked figure stood ominously in the center of the room. Gibbs swallowed a little thickly but rounded up his courage and started towards the new spirit whose entire body was hidden by the cloak he wore except for long skeletal hands that reminded Gibbs a little of claws.

"Let me guess, Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?" But the spirit said nothing and for the first time since all this madness had started, Leroy Jethro Gibbs was afraid.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, some flights of fancy with regard to characterization in this chapter, but I think it works. Enjoy!

In all his travels of the night, Gibbs couldn't remember one instance of feeling too hot or too cold, but the cloaked spirit before him seemed to be radiating frigidity from it's very being and Gibbs shivered in the cold it produced. His nephew's home was now covered in a thin layer of frost and the same blue light Gibbs had awoken to when the first spirit had presented itself to him bathed everything around them in an ethereal light. The effect was unnerving and Gibbs wasn't sure if his shiver had been from the cold, or from the foreboding atmosphere this new apparition had brought with it. Clearing his throat, he addressed the ghost again.

"Are you here to show me the future? The things that will happen if I don't start doing something different with my life?" Along with the cold, the spirit seemed to have brought with it a sadness Gibbs couldn't name and he felt something tighten within his chest. This next guide, this one final apparition he would have to endure, felt pivotal somehow. The previous two spirits had been merry and had shown him things he had no control over, but this spirit was about to show him the future, and one he had no one to blame for, but himself.

The spirit answered his question with a single nod of it's head but remained as silent as the grave.

"Don't you speak?" but the spirit simply stood there and Gibbs got all the answer he needed in an unseen, but icily felt stare. The cloaked figure's face was covered by cloth, but Gibbs could feel its eyes on him all the same. He shuddered and made himself take a step toward his new spirit guide. If the events of the night were indeed real, this was his last chance to learn what it was Leon had meant about the fate of his soul and maybe have a chance to fix it. The visions and hallucinations had gone above and beyond anything he could have ever imagined a drug capable of and he couldn't deny that it was cold he was feeling and that the floor of his nephew's home was as real and as substantial as anything beneath his socked feet. This wasn't a dream and with all the emotions the two previous spirits had stirred up within him (seeing his mother again, taking Shannon into his arms at the Christmas dance, watching Kelly open her gifts on Christmas morning, seeing Palmer play just like his mother, Ellie, and finally his trip to Tony DiNozzo's house and the effect seeing Tiny Tim and his condition had on him) Gibbs finally believed.

"Alright, here's the deal. I'm not too keen about following some hooded unknown bogey into the future and I know I'm not going to like what you have to show me tonight, but I'll do it. I'll go with you because this might be my only chance to change what's to come, so show me what to do and I'll do it."

The spirit, still as silent as the empty apartment around them, lifted a hand and pointed one skeletal finger to its left before sweeping itself around to begin walking in the direction it had indicated. Gibbs followed behind and the shadow the ghost produced in the blue light seemed to swallow him up and carry him away. They landed in the lunchroom of the NCIS building and Gibbs glanced around as he blinked into suddenly bright light. Everything but a group of men huddled around one table having lunch was out of focus and distorted by a heavy mist, some effect, Gibbs figured, of visiting the future and he watched his guide point a finger to the men sitting at the table. Gibbs approached and listened in on their conversation.

"Come on Dorney! Give us all the details!" One of the men prodded eagerly, leaning forward across his lunch. Gibbs didn't recognize the man who spoke, but he did recognize the man who was being addressed. Ned Dorneget was one of his own agents though Gibbs had never given him the time of day.

"You guys know I can't tell you anything about an ongoing investigation!" Dorneget beseeched his captive audience without much conviction and Gibbs had to hold his tongue, remembering this was just a glimpse into the future and that the men sitting at the table could neither see nor hear him.

"What the heck, Dorney! We all work for NCIS. There's no one here who's going to go blabbing that you told us some of the juicy details!" Another piped in to a rousing chorus of ' _Yeah, come on Dorneget!'_

"I'll tell you a little, but I'm not going to give you any names or important details." The men sitting at the table all leaned in further as did Gibbs, eager to discover what about this gathering was pertinent to him.

"You guys remember a few Christmas' back when those soldiers got slaughtered in Pakistan?" The table nodded. "Well the families of those soldiers were pretty pissed and we think one of them went postal and killed him." There was a collective intake of breath and Dorneget went on. "Shot him right in the head. You should have seen the mess. I hear they're still scraping brain matter off his basement floor."

"You sure it wasn't suicide?" Another man asked conspiratorially.

"No, the forensic team definitely ruled that out." Dorneget replied.

"Well that's not that I heard," the first man who had spoken interrupted and the rest of the table turned their heads in his direction.

"Peterson, you idiot, Dorney's point on the investigation. I'm gonna believe what he tells us over anything you heard from the broom squad."

Peterson scowled at the dissent but kept talking. "That's not what I mean. I heard a different rumor about why he died."

"And what's that?" Someone snorted; Petersen apparently not the most trustworthy of sources.

"I heard it was a professional hit," Half the men at the table grunted in disbelief. "What?! You don't believe me?" Petersen countered outraged. "You all know the kind of guy he was. Shady, arrogant, and he double crossed the wrong people."

"No one was ever able to prove he ever did anything illegal," Dorneget cut in and Gibbs looked over at the guy. The conversation was awakening something at his center but there wasn't enough there to make a decision about who this discussion was about. But Dorneget stayed true to his promise and gave away no names.

"Are they even going to have a funeral for him?" One of the table dwellers asked. "I mean, who'd even go?"

"What I want to know is what's going to happen to all that blood money of his? He's probably got it stashed in a mattress somewhere in his house. Guy was a miser! Did you hear what he paid his people?" Said another and the table fell into a quiet debate on where the subject of their conversation could have possibly hidden their fortune and the pros and cons of setting up a search party to go and loot the house of the poor wretched soul they were discussing.

The cloaked spirit of Christmas Yet to Come came up to Gibbs' elbow and he turned towards the specter with a frown. "The person they're talking about, that could be me, couldn't it?" But the spirit remained impassive and unmoving. "Come on, there has to be someone out there who was effected by this man's death. Can you show me them?" The spirit pointed out into the unfocused mist about them and Gibbs cast one last sidelong glance back at the men who were still plotting their robbery before following the ghost out into the fog. Like before, Gibbs was swallowed up into the ghost's shadow and the pair reappeared in the middle of a home Gibbs had never seen before.

A woman stood before a kitchen island rolling dough; her face, hands and front completely covered in flour. The room was festive with lighted snowflakes in the windows, garlands along the tops of the upper cabinets and the smell of baking cookies permeating the air. A door opened behind the baker and the woman remained oblivious, continuing to roll out her dough even as a soldier stepped stealthily into the room and up behind her. He was a Corporal, Gibbs could tell by his uniform, and he leaned over to press a kiss to the flour covered woman's cheek. She turned her head sharply, saw who it was, and actually squealed. The solider caught the woman in his arms, flour and all, and lifted her from her feet.

"Oh Davey! You're home!" The woman breathed, hugging the Corporal even more tightly to her, if that was possible.

"Merry Christmas, Mom," the young man said and set his mother back on her feet.

"How is this possible?" She asked with tears sparking in her eyes.

"They shut down my mission for a few days because of a death at headquarters. The whole place is in an uproar so I got my leave approved and there was only one place I wanted to be," the solider explained, hugging his mother again.

"I hope it wasn't anyone you knew, darling," the woman said sympathetically, trying to wipe away some of the flour on her son's shirt front as they separated from their embrace.

"No, nothing like that. In fact, he was actually the one responsible for those guys that died a few Christmas' ago." The solider said sadly and his mother patted his arm.

"Justice be done," she said simply and her son nodded his agreement.

"Alright, spirit, enough," Gibbs started, turning toward his silent guide as the pair they observed started discussing Christmas cookies. "There has to be someone who's 'sad' about today. Take me there?" They moved forward again and this time guide and traveler arrived out of thin air in front of the home his assistant, Tony DiNozzo. The Polish bakery beneath the apartment was boarded up and a large red FOR SALE sign sat tucked into one dusty corner of a window, but that was not the sight that caught Gibbs' eye almost immediately. What he saw first was the bent and shaking form of his assistant, Tony, sitting on a bench one shop down from his house.

DiNozzo had his head in his hands and was visibly crying. Gibbs couldn't even remember the last time he'd seen a grown man cry and turned to the spirit for some kind of explanation as to why it had brought him here to witness this when there was no way the tears DiNozzo shed were for him, remembering too late that this particular ghost could not (or would not) speak to him. The spirit pointed instead and he looked over in the direction the skeletal finger indicated and watched as Tony's wife Ziva exited their building, pulling a winter coat on against the chill, and walked over to her husband.

"Tony," she said cautiously so as not to startle the man and Gibbs moved in closer to listen to the exchange, dreading what he would overhear, knowing deep down what it was he would learn.

DiNozzo looked up as his wife approached, unabashed face streaked with tears as he sighed. "Busted."

"I saw you walking towards the house but you didn't come up. I just wanted to make sure you were okay." Ziva sat herself on the bench beside her husband and wrapped a hand around one of his own, squeezing slightly. "You were gone a long time today."

"I'm sorry Ziva, I guess it all hit me a little harder than I thought it would." Tony forced out then hung his head again, shoulders shaking with the force of his grief. "It's not fair," he whispered last and Ziva enveloped the man in her arms.

Gibbs, knowing he'd get no answer, rounded on the spirit anyways. "He's dead, isn't he, Tony's son, Tiny Tim?" The spirit surprised him with a nod and Gibbs made himself turn back to the couple sitting on the bench.

"You should have seen his little hill today, Ziva," Tony was saying, drying his face with the back of his glove. "Since it's been such a mild winter this year the grass is actually still green, and someone left a Christmas wreath for him. I tried to find out who but Dan didn't have any idea."

"Dan the groundskeeper?" Ziva asked and Tony nodded.

"We kind of hit it off since I've been there so often lately. He has a son, too so I think he kind of gets what we're going through."

"We will make it through this Christmas, Tony." Ziva said firmly, cupping her husband's cheek to turn his freshly dampened face her way. "Just like Tim would have wanted us to," she finished, making her husband hold her gaze and Tony captured his wife's hand in his own and kissed her.

"I just miss him so much," he whispered when they finished, keeping their foreheads connected and closing his eyes against another wave of emotion that was strong enough to set his shoulders to shaking again. Gibbs had to look away.

"There has to be something someone can do," he said, not sure who the words were really directed at. The ghost of Christmas Yet to Come came up once more beside him, indicating it was time to move on, but Gibbs stood firmly rooted in place for a moment more. It was time to put an end to all of this once and for all.

"I want to know who that man at NCIS was; the one who died. Will you take me there next?" He asked, expecting only silence and the ghost obliged with a pointed finger into the confused swirling mist that obscured everything around them but for the grieving couple holding each other on the bench. Gibbs followed after the spirit one final time and was transported to a familiar graveyard. Stomach bottoming out and heart skittering away madly in his chest, Gibbs spied the gravestones of his long lost wife and daughter. But there was a new addition to the family plot and it was at this stone the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come pointed to next. Gibbs turned back to his guide, completely unwilling to accept what he was seeing though knowing the truth deep down all along.

"No," he pleaded, nearly clutching at the spirit's grey robes, turning his back on the grave that was utterly forgotten and overrun with dead weeds. "The whole point of this was to give me a chance, right? So what good is it for me to go over there and read that headstone?" But the spirit before him stood tall and imposing and pointed again in the direction of the grave, hands more claw-like than Gibbs remembered. He took a few steps forward that stopped to turn again.

"If I wake up tomorrow and make this right, there's a chance Tiny Tim will live and that I can fix all this, right?" Nothing. "Damn it, can't you tell me anything?" But the tall grey specter merely continued to point, unmoving and unsympathetic to the man nearly trembling before him. Choking on some foreign emotion he didn't understand, Gibbs made himself turn again and fall to his knees in the snow before the ice encased gravestone in front of him. He reached out a trembling hand, and brushed against the frigid stone with bare fingers.

**Leroy Jethro Gibbs, 1958 to 2014**

No words of remembrance, no place of honor in a military cemetery, just a forlorn and forgotten headstone lost amongst the hills of a DC graveyard.

Gibbs pulled his outstretched hand back in and balled it into a fist, angry at no one else but himself and the future he alone had created. Faces flashed through is mind: Ellie, Tony, Tiny Tim, Palmer, Shannon, Kelly... he'd betrayed them all because he'd let his heart go black, because he'd let his grief blind him to the people, hell the world, that was around him and still filled with love and hope and joy and Christmas, even though he no longer kept a place open in his own heart to receive any of it. He'd been a fool and now he had been shown the fruits of those labors and he didn't even know if he could change it. But the strange part about all of it was, it wasn't so much the lonely gravestone that had him so upset, it was thoughts of Tiny Tim's death, his assistant's heartache, and his own nephew's ostracisation that worried his mind because he'd been the cause of all of it...

Gibbs pulled himself up from the snow and walked back over to where the spirit of Christmas Yet to Come still stood.

"You showed me all of this so I can change it, right? Otherwise what's the point?"

The spirit stood as silent and as still as the graves around them.

"Damn it, why won't you speak to me?!"

As if in answer, the spirit began to raise it's arms, cloak falling back to reveal decaying grey skin as it reached for its hooded face. Gibbs took a step back without thinking, terrified he'd done something wrong and that this specter of death was about to reveal its face and pluck him from the world forever.

"Stop!" Gibbs yelled. "I get what you were all trying to show me, alright? I know what it is I have to do, what I want to do to fix all this! You just have to give me a chance to change it. And I will! I'll live in the past, the present and the future, and honor my family instead of disgracing them," but the spirit's clawed hands continued to reach for its hood and Gibbs cowered. He actually coward.

"Please!" he begged one final time, just as spirit's mask fell away.

The dead, pallid and unseeing face of Ari Haswari, the terrorist he'd sent troops into Pakistan that morning to collect, stared out of rotting eye sockets and a face that seemed to decay right before Gibbs' eyes. He stumbled backwards then, a cry cutting through the still air of the graveyard, but he slipped in the icy snow in his haste to escape and his head connected heavily with a gravestone behind him.

And as the spirit of Christmas Yet to Come hovered above him, Leroy Jethro Gibbs knew no more.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gotta say, this was the hardest chapter to write, Gibbs being a functional mute and all and the last Chapter of this story being all about Scrooge jumping around and proclaiming his love of mankind from the rooftops of old London, but I think I managed to capture the essence of the ending while remaining a little true to Gibbs. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! This chapter concludes our story and I hope you had as much fun reading this as I had in writing it.

Gibbs jolted awake in complete blackness and a cold so frigid his toes and fingers ached with it. He was lying on his back on something soft and he sat bolt upright, disoriented at first by the total darkness enveloping him and wondering if this was perhaps his hell: an eternal land of blackness. But as Gibbs stood up and moved forward carefully in the dark, he crashed bodily into something hard and heavy, but all too familiar. It was the wood burning stove in the center of his basement and Gibbs bent over double to wrap his arms around the cold metal. The fire had long ago gone out, but Gibbs could have cared less.

"Oh God, I have never been happier to see you, ya old hunk of junk."

He fumbled with matches in the dark, and made quick work of the fire to throw some light. The basement looked as old and forlorn as ever and Gibbs moved over to one far wall and to an old window that had been boarded up long ago to keep light out. Wrenching the heavy wooden board away with his fingers, early morning light streamed in, dust moats dancing in the familiar blue light of dawn and Gibbs blinked out into it.

"I don't know if you can hear me Leon," he began, surprising himself with his own voice in the quiet basement, "or if anything last night really happened, but your spirits reminded me of some things I had forgotten. I know the kind of man I let myself turn into after Shannon and Kelly died and I swear I'm not going to waste this. Rule # 5, right? Don't waste good. That's what Shannon always told me anyways and I'll live by those rules again Leon, you can bet your ass!"

Gibbs felt lighter than air as he stepped away from the window and didn't know what to do with himself at first. There was so much he needed to fix, so much to atone for, and knew that there was one thing he absolutely had to do first, if it wasn't already too late to do so. He had no idea how long the spirits had taken in showing him the past, present and future and there was a chance that he might not be able to make one very important thing right. Rifling through the clothes he had down in the basement, Gibbs chose his most respectable suit and took the basement stairs two at a time.

His foyer was filled with the same bright light of morning, but Gibbs realized with a sudden shock that he had nothing to check the date or time with. He had no computer at home. His old tube TV was busted and he hadn't had time to get it fixed and his cell phone was lying dead on the table just inside the front door. He plugged it into its charger but it was an older model phone that wouldn't let him turn it on until it reached a certain charge. Not caring about the cold, he threw his door open wide and stepped outside onto his porch.

The street before him was covered in a thick layer of freshly fallen snow and Gibbs found himself admiring it as he took in a huge breath of fresh, cold air and, rather than naming the dusting of white a nuisance (a sure sign at least something had changed inside of him) he enjoyed the sight of it. His thoughts drifted to Kelly and the snowmen they used to build together in this very yard and Gibbs felt his face stretch into a smile.

"Hey, kid!" He called out as a young boy ran past his house on the sidewalk pulling a sled in the snow behind him. The boy was packed into a snow suit so tightly his arms couldn't rest against his sides properly and the whole effect reminded Gibbs of an old Christmas movie he used to watch with his family. The child stopped dead in his tracks and stared up at Gibbs with fear in his eyes.

"What's today?" Gibbs called.

"Huh?" The boy asked, confused.

"They day, son! What's today?"

"It's Christmas, Mr. Gibbs," the boy replied, surprising Gibbs that he knew his name. He must be more infamous than he thought. Time enough to change that though.

"Thanks, kid!" Gibbs called back, giving the boy a smile and a wave which seemed to throw him through a loop, "and Merry Christmas!" Gibbs closed the door on the astonished boy and chuckled to himself. He hadn't missed it, Christmas. And if today was Christmas day, then that meant he might still have time to correct one important thing.

Throwing boots and a coat on, Gibbs made his way through the snow and into his garage. Opening the door he eyed his old car quizzically and wondered if it was even going to start seeing has how he hadn't used it in months. Since hiring Fernando he'd needed the car less and less and now it was going to ruin all of his plans. A quick turn of the key confirmed his fears and he sat behind the wheel wondering how he was going to get into NCIS. He could call Fernando, but that would mean pulling the poor guy away from his family on Christmas morning... unless Gibbs made it well worth his while. Plan forming in his head, he headed back into the house and turned his cell back on. The little flip phone showed no calls missed and no messages so he dialed a familiar number and worried for a moment that Fernando wouldn't pick up. Thankfully on the last ring a gruff voice answered.

"Hello?"

"Fernando," He started off sternly. "Gibbs. I need you to come and take me into the office right now. It's an emergency."

"But it's Christmas, Director Gibbs," the man started to argue with an incredulous edge to his voice, but Gibbs had a plan to stick to.

"Mr. Riviera, if you are not in front of my house in 10 minutes, you're fired and you can be bet I will make sure you never work in this town again. Got it?" Gibbs asked, wondering if his harshness was a good idea but having no time to change his mind as Fernando offered a hasty "be right there, sir" and hung up the phone before Gibbs could say anything else. He readied what he needed to complete his first mission and 10 minutes later Fernando sat idling out on the curb in front of Gibbs's house. He locked his front door behind him, smiled at his door knocker, then schooled his mouth back down into a frown before stalking out to the waiting car.

"Take me to NICS and hurry," Gibbs barked and Fernando took off for headquarters, getting them there in record time. When he rounded the car to let Gibbs out after they had arrived, Gibbs pulled the man up on to the sidewalk with him waving an envelope.

"This is for you," he said, handing the man the blank white package and watching his driver's face darken slightly. "I'll no longer be requiring your services."

Fernando's eyes went wide with shock, then fear but Gibbs stood there until he started opening the envelope. When he pulled out the check, his face went white.

"I want you to come see me Monday morning and we'll discuss getting you on the NCIS payroll. I need a good driver around here to help visiting dignitaries get around the city. Will you come see me?" Gibbs asked the trembling man before him whose eyes were going shiny with moisture.

"Director Gibbs, I..." the man started, looking back and forth between Gibbs and the check he had clutched in his hands, unsure of what to say.

"Go back to your family, Fernando, and thank you for driving me this morning. A cab would have taken too long to get me here." And with a quick shake of the astonished man's hand Gibbs turned and walked into NCIS through his private entrance and made his way toward MTAC.

There was a skeleton crew on duty for Christmas, mostly people who didn't celebrate the holiday but Gibbs wished them all good mornings as he passed, earning wide eyed stares and mumbled greetings back as he made his way. When he reached the elevated platform before MTAC he hardened his face once again.

The interior of the room was as dark as it always was and Gibbs spied Colonel Lindstrom sitting in the front row of chairs with a laptop perched in her lap, too engrossed in what she was doing to hear Gibbs approach. She was Skypeing with her family and two excited kids were proudly showing off their gifts on the tiny screen.

"What the hell are you doing, solider?" Gibbs asked sternly from behind her, barely able to check his emotion or make his voice sound angry. Lindstrom snapped the laptop shut in a flash and stood to attention immediately, computer accidently clattering to the floor beside her in her haste. Gibbs bent down to retrieve the laptop from the floor and came up with the deepest glower he could manage.

"This is not what I had in mind when I told you to stay here last night, Lindstrom," Gibbs growled and the Colonel before him reddened but didn't retort.

"I thought you weren't going to be in today, Sir. What are you doing here?" She asked with barely checked anger shaking her words.

"I'm the director of NCIS, Colonel. I work here." Gibbs turned toward the live satellite feeds coming in on the big screen before him. "Where are our boys, how far did they get last night?"

When Lindstrom didn't answer, Gibbs turned around. "Well?"

"I didn't send them out sir." She said, ducking her head and looking at the floor.

"Excuse me!?"

"Director Gibbs, it's Christmas!" She implored, looking up at him with desperation behind her eyes, but defiance as well, like she knew the old version of Gibbs was going to fire her right on the spot for giving the men and women under her command the Christmas Eve they deserved. Only she wasn't dealing with the Gibbs of old, and new Gibbs stepped forward to clap a hand on the woman's shoulder.

"Thank you," he said genuinely and Lindstrom made to argue as if she hadn't yet processed what it was he had just said to her.

"I don't care what you say, those men... Wait, what?" She sputtered to a stop, eying the hand on her shoulder which he promptly removed.

"Thank you Colonel. I got over here as soon as I could thinking I would be too late. Pull them back to the boarder and then get your ass out of here and back to your family." He turned to leave, but a hand on his arm stopped him.

"Sir?" She asked questioningly, searching his face as if expecting it all to be some big joke.

"I'm serious Lindstrom. Have them stay put at the border and we can meet after Christmas to decide what our next step should be, then go home. It looks like you've got some pretty excited kids waiting for you." Realizing he still had her laptop in his hands, he handed the computer back to the flabbergasted Colonel. She took it from him, but then did something Gibbs was not expecting. The woman threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.

Gibbs hadn't been hugged in a long time, probably since before Shannon and Kelly had been killed, and he awkwardly patted Lindstrom's back before she pulled away.

"Merry Christmas," he said a little brokenly and the Colonel's face broke out into a wide smile.

"Merry Christmas Director Gibbs," she replied, and turned away to get to work.

"That goes for all of you," he said to the various techs still at work. "If you didn't volunteer to be here today, finish up and then get the heck out. It's Christmas," and he left to a rousing chorus of thank you's.

Gibbs called a cab on his way out of NCIS but not before visiting the building manager's office to leave him a note about seeing him on Monday to arrange to have the power and heat restored to his office. He hadn't even bothered going in there, knowing how uncomfortable it would be and by the time he finished wishing the security guard on duty a Merry Christmas, his cab was waiting for him.

Gibbs watched the DC streets flash by as the taxi made its way across town and to the little apartment above the bakery he planned on visiting next, and Gibbs pressed his nose against the glass without even realizing he'd done so to watch the Christmas festiveness go by. At one point he even asked the driver to pull over so he could marvel at the giant Christmas tree erected on the White House lawn before waiving the driver on. He'd spent so much of his life in a hurry, trying to outrun the past, that he'd never taken the time to truly look at the lighted city around him. And it really was a sight to see. The crowds that darted to and fro weren't irksome at all. They were just people, excited for the day and for the season and Gibbs should have been one of them all along. He'd wasted so many years but not anymore! He would change, he HAD to change if he was going to affect the awful things he saw in his future. And when he folded himself out of the cab and onto the sidewalk outside of the little Polish bakery that was closed up for Christmas but no less festive with lighted window front and frosted cookies in its windows, Gibbs was smiling. He asked the driver if he would mind waiting for a bit with the promise of a handsome tip, then made his way to the stoop in front of Tony DiNozzo's home.

Gibbs waited on the street for a few minutes after pressing the bell, receiving no response to his ring, and was just about to give up when finally he heard a crash and a bang and a very disheveled looking Tony DiNozzo opened the street level door.

"Boss," he croaked, peering out into the light as if he'd just woken up. "What's going on? Everything alright?" Gibbs had forgotten how early it was but it was too late to turn back now.

"No, everything's not alright. You weren't in the office this morning like we discussed," Gibbs said with as much fake anger as he could muster, which wasn't much.

"But Director, sir," Tony stammered, straightening his robe and tightening it around himself, "you gave me the day off, remember? And why didn't you just call me?"

"I tried to, DiNozzo!" Gibbs fumed. "Rule #3, remember?"

"Rule # 3? Boss, are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, DiNozzo. Rule # 3, never be unreachable!"

"Gibbs, I have no idea what you're talking about." Tony was eying him like he was crazy, and maybe he was.

"I can see that," it was all he could do not to laugh at the ridiculous look his assistant was giving him. "Look DiNozzo, I don't think this is going to work out anymore." Gibbs finished, gesturing between them with a hand.

"Oh no you don't!" a voice interrupted their exchange from behind Tony and Gibbs peered around his assistant and up the stairs just in time to see Tony's wife bang open the apartment door and come bounding down to the first floor, her eyes flashing with anger. "You've got a lot of nerve showing up at our home on Christmas day to fire my husband," she yelled and Tony shot a hand out to stop her from bowling Gibbs over.

"Ziva, please." He pleaded but she ignored him.

"How dare you!" Tony wrapped an arm around her waist as she tried to lurch forward as if to smack Gibbs and he almost lost his cool then and there to break out into a smile.

"Mrs. DiNozzo, I haven't come to fire your husband," he said quickly and the woman struggling in Tony's arms froze instantly.

"What?" She asked, confused at the sudden turn of events. "What did you just say?"

"I said, I'm not here to fire Tony. I'm here to promote him."

"What?" It was Tony who asked that time.

"Look DiNozzo, you're too qualified to be sitting behind a desk. You belong out in the field. So if you're interested, I have a major case response team I was thinking of putting together but I'd need someone I trust to run it. It comes with a pay increase and, if you would be okay with it, some help from me personally for you and your family. I heard your son is sick and I have a few acquaintances who are doctors who might be able to help you guys out." The two people standing just inside the door were blinking at him with mouths agape.

"Whadda say, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked, putting out a hand which Tony took after a confused beat, still looking stunned.

"Um, yeah boss!" He replied as he recovered a little and smiled wide. " _Absolutely_ , yes! And would you come inside for a few minutes? My kids would love to meet you!" Tony suggested and Gibbs was suddenly unsure.

"They don't bite, I promise," Ziva put in and Gibbs allowed himself to be pulled inside the door by Tony's wife who seemed to be unsure of what to say to him still, but wrapped her arm around his own anyway and walked him up the stairs as if to keep him from changing his mind. Tony went to talk to the cab driver and Gibbs ascended the stairs with Ziva. When they entered the apartment Tony's three sleepy children looked his way.

"Kids, this is the director of NCIS and daddy's boss. He's come to wish you a Merry Christmas," Ziva announced and Peter and Emily's eyes went wide but Tiny Tim, tucked into his wheelchair with a Christmas quilt spread over his legs, grinned up at Gibbs.

"Hi guys," he offered a little shyly, having not addressed kids in over 20 years. "Merry Christmas." But blank stares only followed.

"Well, come on guys," Tony admonished his kids as he entered the apartment and closed the door behind him. "What do you say?"

"Merry Christmas," the kids said in union and Tiny Tim began wheeling his chair over to where Gibbs stood awkwardly just inside the door. He held a little hand out and Gibbs took it, surprised by the strength in the grip, and he couldn't help but smile.

"Nice to meet you, Master Timothy," and everyone laughed a little nervously.

"That's what my Papa calls me," the boy replied and waived his father over. Tony leaned in when the boy indicated he had a secret to tell and listened intently. When he straightened up, it was with a grin.

"It's okay with me buddy, and I think it's a great idea." Gibbs wrinkled his brow in confusion and Tony walked over to retrieve one of the gifts under the tree. Everyone else in the apartment watched the proceedings in silence, no one really sure what to make of their strange visitor or Tim's plan for him. Tony brought over a brightly wrapped package and handed it over to Gibbs who handled the package carefully, like it would crumble to dust in his hands if he wasn't careful.

"For me?" He asked surprised, eyeing the label and seeing that it was supposed to be a gift from Tim to his father. He looked over at the boy quizzically. "But this is for your dad."

"Yeah," the little boy replied thoughtfully, as precocious an answer as Gibbs had ever heard, "but he liked my idea to give it to you instead. I think you need it more than he does."

Opening the festive wrapping paper with one rip, Gibbs held in his hands a bright red scarf embroidered with white snowflakes at either end. It was well made and warm and he had to stop and clear his throat before thanking the boy.

"This is great," he said, wrapping the scarf around his neck to the approval of all in the small apartment. "I'm gonna wear it to the Christmas party I'm heading to next. Everyone is going to be asking me where I got it." The little boy in the chair before him held open his arms and with a glance towards Tony and his wife who were both nodding their approval, Gibbs knelt down and received a gift that was better than any scarf. Tim gave the tightest hug his weak arms could managed and whispered a "Merry Christmas" into Gibbs' ear quietly, and just for him.

"Merry Christmas, Tiny Tim," Gibbs replied back, just as quietly, before straightening and Tim smiled before wheeling himself off back towards the living room. Gibbs stood standing still for a moment, running thumb and forefinger over the fabric of the scarf he'd just been given. The first real present he'd received in years.

"Thanks, Director. For stopping by and for the promotion. I can't tell you what it means to me and my family," Tony said, breaking through Gibbs's silence.

"And I meant what I said about your son," Gibbs answered after pulling himself back together and nodding in the small boy's direction. "We'll sit down first thing Monday and go over the details, okay?"

"I don't suppose we could convince you to stay for dinner?" Ziva asked, blushing a little when Gibbs smiled at her. He was getting kind of good at the whole 'showing emotion' thing.

"Thank you for the offer, but I actually have somewhere to be. My nephew is throwing a party and I want to make an appearance."

"Palmer's party? You're going to go?" Tony asked excitedly, stepping forward to open the door so Gibbs could leave.

"Yeah. That boy looks just like his mother and it's high time I start treating him like the family he is."

"I think that's a fantastic idea, boss," Tony replied. "He's a really nice guy and his wife is going to have that baby any time now. They'll be so happy to have you."

"Merry Christmas, Tony." Gibbs offered, shaking hands with his soon to be ex-assistant and grabbing Ziva's as well so place a kiss on her knuckles. "You have a beautiful wife, Tony," and he left a blushing Mr. and Mrs. DiNozzo on the landing.

Gibbs had his cabbie drop him off in front of his nephew's house after a quick stop at an open food mart to pick out the best wine they had and something for the snack table. He knew he was early but he had been married once and knew the fastest way into a wife's heart and good graces was to show up early and ready to help and with Palmer's wife about to have a baby, he hoped an extra pair of hands would be welcomed, even if they were many years late and quite possibly unwanted. Gibbs paid his taxi driver an exorbitant tip, received many blessings from the thankful man behind the wheel, and made his way slowly up the front walk of Palmer's house. The kid had done pretty well for himself over the years, with no help whatsoever from his dreadful uncle, and Gibbs spent a long while staring at the front bell wondering if he should be doing this. But Palmer had shown up at his office every year for the past 10 years with the invite to join him and Breena for Christmas so there was no reason to loiter out on the stoop.

Steeling himself for the worst, Gibbs hit the bell and waited.

It took a moment or two but eventually Palmer's head appeared in the window beside the door and Gibbs watched his nephew's eyes widen in shock. He was getting used to seeing that look on people's faces and imagined that he would continue seeing it as he made the changes in his life and at NCIS that he was already planning. Palmer opened the door wide and several emotions flashed across his face all at once before settling on bewilderment.

"Uncle Gibbs, to what do we owe the honor?" Gibbs held out the wine and the food he'd brought and Palmer took them, still starting at his Uncle like he didn't quite know what to make of him.

"I was just wondering if the offer to spend Christmas with you and Breena still stood. You know, if you don't mind a crabby old guy who's got a lot to make up for." Palmer continued to stare then seemed to recover himself slightly.

"Uncle Jethro, you will forever and always be welcome here. Now get in here out of the cold and come and meet my wife. She's gonna be ecstatic!"

"She's gotta be about ready to have that baby, huh?" Gibbs commented as his nephew stepped aside to let him in and Palmer laughed.

"Oh, you have no idea Uncle Jethro. I wonder if the shock of seeing you here will send her into early labor."

"Should I go? I don't want to upset her," Gibbs spoke genuinely, not wanting to be the one to ruin the party by sending the hostess into premature labor but Palmer shook his head firmly.

"No way! Are you kidding?! She's going to be so happy that you're here. She is the one, after all, who makes sure every single year that I don't forget to stop by your office and make the offer. What made you change your mind, by the way?"

Gibbs chuckled. "That's a long story. I'll tell you some of it while we get ready for your guests. There's just one thing, though," he added, going a little serious.

Palmer leaned in, "What's that Uncle Jethro?"

"I don't do charades." He joked with a smile and Palmer laughed as he closed the door behind them.

And thus our story ends on Christmas day and as happy and wondrous a Christmas Day as the old city had ever seen for Gibbs was true to his word. He promoted Tony to lead of a special NCIS major case response team, helped the DiNozzo's get the proper care for Tiny Tim who recovered as well as anyone could have expected, though he would always require the use of his crutch.

As for Leroy Jethro Gibbs, he became the most respected and beloved NCIS Director in the history of the agency. He cared for the people under his command with as much love as own family had shown him when they had been alive and carried Christmas in his heart all the long years of his life proclaiming, as Tiny Tim once had:

"God bless us, every one."

Merry Christmas

**Fin**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is dedicated to all the men and woman of the armed forces who will get no reprieve this Christmas Day like the soldiers in my little story. I am forever humbled by the sacrifices these men and woman make so that I may be free and I commend and love them all.
> 
> A very Merry Christmas to everyone! And if you don't celebrate or are not a Christian, I wish you a Merry December! :)
> 
> Please take a moment to leave me your thoughts! It takes mere moments and I can't tell you enough how much they mean to us authors who only get better when we hear from you about what works and what doesn't in a fic. So please (it is Christmas after all) leave a review before you leave.
> 
> MERRY CHRISTMAS!


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